Sunday, 8 January 2017

Four Flies On Grey Velvet (Dario Argento, 1971) DVD Review

“Seeing all these worms make a living out of death,
kind of knocks the fear out of you, right?”Dario Argento's third
giallo film and, at the time, intended to be his last, Four Flies On Grey
Velvet is a curious mix of murder mystery and offbeat comedy in which a
drummer in a prog rock band finds himself framed for murder – but his
blackmailer has no intention of calling the cops on him, so what is it they're
after?

Click “READ MORE” below to continue the review and see more
screenshots…

“Let's face it – everyone has to die – it's a
commercial necessity.”Roberto Tobias (Michael Brandon, Episodes)
has spent the past week being followed by a strange man in black – but to what
end? Then, one night after band practise, Roberto chooses to stumble down the
rabbit hole when he spots the stranger spying on him in the car park. Stalking
the man in black to a dilapidated opera house, he confronts him – only for the
man in black to pull a knife. A scuffle ensues and Roberto accidentally kills
the guy. Stunned and gazing at the bloodied body – murder weapon in-hand –
flood lights suddenly catch Roberto red handed and a mysterious figure in a
creepy mask photographs him before fleeing the scene.

“I could kill you now – but I won't. I'll wait.”Roberto gets away with the unintended crime, but when the opera house voyeur
starts to persecute him with evidence tying him to the unsolved murder, he
spirals into paranoia. Even his own home isn't safe as his wife Nina (Mimsy
Farmer, Autopsy) gets caught up in his woes and her cousin Dalia (Francine
Racette) arrives just in time to raise Roberto's prurient interests.
Employing Gianni Arrosio (Jean-Pierre Marielle), a private investigator,
and enlisting the help of two street smart friends, Roberto hopes to get to the
bottom of this strange case that somehow ties to a mental asylum and a
discharged patient diagnosed with homicidal mania. Who is the killer, and how
many more will have to die before the mystery is solved?

“If you're gonna call me God, at least you could call
me God Almighty.”Wearing its literary and cinematic influences on its
sleeve in typically brazen Italian style, Argento's follow up to Cat O'Nine
Tails swoops like a magpie upon Raymond Chandler's The Little Sister
(the mosquito opening), Truffaut's Stolen Kisses (following
the telephone conversation), and Frederic Brown's The Screaming Mimi
for two of the film's most intriguing characters – Godfrey and The Professor (Oreste
Lionello). The latter, a light-fingered odd job man with an educated mind,
is initially found lazing in a hammock scrounging for loose change. The former,
meanwhile – played by Bud Spencer – is a world-weary vagrant (with a parrot
named “Jerkoff”) whose street smarts far outsize the chemically-dwindled
fish he eats raw from the sewer run-off on the outskirts of the city … and he's
nicknamed “God”. Like omniscient observers, they hover around Roberto,
dispensing advice and direction, but for the most part steer clear of outright
intervention until absolutely necessary. Just like the beardy bloke in the
clouds, 'God' has the uncanny ability to leave you swinging in the wind one
minute and come to the rescue as your saviour the next. There's a commentary on
academia and religion buried in all this somewhere, alongside the savage snipes
at the modern Italy of the time. Indeed, gialli often provided their authors
the opportunity to wrestle with the issues of the day within a populist
framework, but Four Flies On Grey Velvet opts to leave the higher ideas
dangling on a hook.

“Eighty-four failures! A fantastic record!”The
Italians were also quite fond of their comedies as a change of pace when they'd
had enough sex and death for one evening, but Four Flies On Grey Velvet
displays Argento's fondness for offbeat jokes. Prefiguring the 'battle of the
sexes' humour writ large in the lengthier Director's Cut of Deep Red (1975),
here we find Arrosio – a decidedly camp (and rather dated) Private
Investigator – replete with a collapsing Fiat, a track record of complete
failure at his job, and a curious approach to painting and decorating. However,
the broad comedy extends further to a recurring sub-plot with Roberto's
embattled mail man (bumbling, beaten, and bug-eyed), and a bizarre
interlude where Roberto, God, and The Professor analyse the murder mystery
while exploring a coffin convention! Some of the humorous moments work quite
well, but others are considerably jarring, making for a constantly shifting
tone throughout.

“What are ya after, man? What's your trip?!”
It may feel like a long 99 minutes, but the key set pieces lift the film as a
whole and exhibit the Dario we all know and love. From a particularly effective
stalking scene that draws us into the darkness of an attic, to the use of sound
(the howling wind outside Roberto's locked windows is especially foreboding),
the film's weaknesses are mostly swept aside by Franco di Giacomo's
meticulously arranged visuals. Framing, lighting, depth of field, set design –
all of it makes for a strong visual piece … if only the same attention had been
paid to the pacing of the script and the weak-sauce leads. Nina only comes
alive towards the end, while Roberto is condemned to little sympathy or
interest from the audience because he himself feels only half-interested in the
peril that surrounds him. However, other highlights include a surreal visit to
a public park where crowds of people vanish – and day switches to night – in an
instant, and an underused fantastical conceit that the last thing a murder
victim saw can be scanned and reproduced much like a photo negative.

“Eugh! How horrible! Who brought him here?”
Foretelling future Argento gialli – Deep Red and Terror at the Opera
specifically – Four Flies On Grey Velvet is an uneven outing from the
master of Italian genre cinema. Lacking the focus and finesse of his début The
Bird With The Crystal Plumage, and the sheer bravado of his later work –
such as Suspiria and Tenebrae – Dario's third film nonetheless
emerges from the shadow of his other attention-grabbing work as an early
indicator of what was to come (see the final moments, captured in extreme
slow motion).

“Just as I suspected – a typical victim of the
consumer society.” Shameless Screen Entertainment's 35th DVD
release (from 2011 – also available on Blu-Ray) is one of their best
looking outings to date. Sound and Picture are both excellent – although
several moments of re-inserted footage are of starkly poorer quality,
occasionally switching to an Italian track with English subtitles – but for the
most part the presentation is impressive, remastered from the original
negative. Shameless have rarely boasted extensive special features, but a 40
minute interview with co-writer Luigi Cozzi (Contamination)
proves to be an enjoyable and informative discussion of Argento's lesser-known
giallo film. Rounding out the package are two trailers, a photo gallery,
alternative English credit sequences, and a fleeting intro to the film.

About Me

I am a British freelance filmmaker, as well as a writer, movie fanatic, and zombie obsessive. I am the author of "Dug Deep" and the "Celebrityville" series of books, and write for Sleaze Fiend Magazine and Homepage of the Dead.
Of the many filmmakers who influence me, some are: Romero, Raimi, Carpenter, Cameron, Fincher, Tarantino, Rodriguez, Kubrick, Boyle, Zombie, Martino, Fulci, Argento, Cronenberg, Marshall, Smith, Nolan, Dominik, Scott, Mann, Hooper, De Palma, Leone, Spielberg and Zemeckis.